I work as a CNC programmer. We have five 5-axis routers with 2 work tables each at my workplace. We use them for plastic trimming and drilling. The machines aren’t the best in the market but they surely work for our purposes.

To cut the parts we place a thermoformed plastic on a holding fixture in the router. There are several parts that are similar to each with little difference like a cutout or the positions of some holes, so we may use a holding fixture for many different parts/programs.

This generates a lot of problems because sometimes the operators place the wrong fixture on the machine, or the correct fixture but the wrong program. This may cause a crash of the machine with the fixture and it can take up to 10 hours to fix it, depending on the severity of the accident and the skills of the maintenance technician who fixes it. This causes a production halt on the machine and it escalates the problem to other areas where they may need the parts that were about to be produced in order to keep working.